EV Discussion thread

michaels

Grumpy_chap said:

JKenH said:

Personally I am pleased to see the Ford Fiesta back in its traditional position. It just demonstrates how sales have been distorted by recent events. Demand I am sure has always been there but Ford elected for a while not to manufacture the car and is in fact binning it next year. Doesn’t make any sense to me but obviously it does to the bean counters. 

I mentioned much the same and was rounded upon for suggesting volume was a worthy metric, but manufacturers would pursue low volume, high profit strategy.

I suspect, when cost of living challenges bite, significant discount will be available on all sorts of cars.

I guess those shopping at the lowest price point are most likely to feel the pinch and vice versa hence looking to sell higher up the price chain. 
Plus if margins are greater on the bigger/more upmarket cars then there is more scope to use incentives to sell unused production without making a loss on each unit sold. 
Finally the Chinese are coming and are most likely to be competitive at the price sensitive end of the market at least initially.

Put all this together with the parts shortage and it is hardly a surprise that traditional manufacturers are abandoning the 'mass market'

JKenH

Electric Cars Are Affordable In China, But Remain Quite Expensive In

Europe And The US

A more worrying issue is that EVs remain a lot more expensive compared to gasoline cars – by 27% in Europe and by 43% in the US. The balance is quite the opposite in China, where EVs are already cheaper than ICE-powered vehicles by an impressive 33%.

https://www.carscoops.com/2022/11/evs-are-affordable-in-china-but-remain-quite-expensive-in-europe-and-the-us/

JKenH

Sad day today, my Leaf has gone away.

I had intended to keep it for a while but my son wanted a 40kWh model and financially it made sense for him to have mine. I have loved driving the car and consider it seriously underrated; e-Pedal makes it so relaxing in town or stop start traffic - nothing else I have driven is quite like it. I did consider having his 30kWh Leaf back as a runabout but that would just be a constant reminder of what I had given up.

Will I go back to electric? Yes, of course, if and when the right car comes along (and the rapid charging network is sorted) or when my wife will accept an EV as her runabout. For now it’s back to manual gearchanges and paying 15p a mile (plus £165 for road tax). That will cost me around £1100 a year but with insurance, servicing and depreciation it would have cost me more to keep the Leaf on. 

Edit: I just thought it would be interesting to look at the use of my Leaf over the last year and do a bit more scientific comparison of running costs against the Golf which is replacing it. I had assumed that as my Leaf was 32 months old and had done 16783 miles it was around 6000 miles per year. The LeafSpy stats below suggest that last year’s usage at 6811 miles was higher which is logical as we had lockdowns during 2020 and 2021. The petrol cost based on WLTP figures for my Golf at 15p/mile would be around £1050.

During the last year I had 18 QCs (charges using the Chademo socket) but 2 of those were from my son’s V2G/H charger so that leaves 16 at public rapid chargers. I also can recall at least 4 times visiting chargers where I failed to get a charge for technical reasons and at least 4 times arrived at a planned charger to find it busy and had to move on so that makes 24 engagements with the rapid charging network. (There may have been more of the non charging engagements which have slipped my mind.) I had one free rapid charge but I was spending around £5 in the earlier months and £10 or so over the summer. (I haven’t used a rapid in the last 2 months electing to take my wife’s Picanto on the only journey that would have exceeded the range of the Leaf.) My spend on rapids was therefore somewhere in the region of £120. Most of my home charging has been on Octopus Go Faster at 5.5p/kWh although there has been the odd unplanned daytime charge and quite a bit of solar charging in the summer. If I were to say 6800 miles charged at home at an average 4p/kWh at 3.2 miles/kWh (3.8 miles/kWh less charging losses of around 15%) my home charging cost for the year is around £85. Total charging cost therefore for 7800 miles of £205 approx equates to around 2.6p/mile.

Looking ahead, once I move to the new Go tariff of 12p/kWh my home charging costs will be around £204 and I estimate rapid charging costs, assuming similar usage, will be around £160 so a total of £364 or 4.67p/mile. To fuel my Golf for 7800 miles will cost around 15p/mile or £1170. 

PS if anyone was wondering why the L1/L2 figures are so high it is due to the Zappi which records scheduled charging as 2 charges and if charging on the Eco++ setting, every time the sun goes in and comes out or the kettle switches on it counts the interruptions as a new charge. 

JKenH

Electric vs petrol car - which is really cheaper?? Whatcar?

https://youtu.be/SzZYRFZUbn0

Spoiler - it’s horses for courses. Charge at home and electric is cheaper. Charge on the road and it is more expensive (Ionity vs MSA petrol prices).

Well of course we know this but the apposite comment at the end of the video is that “in the early days of electric cars it was taken as a given that they were cheaper to run; that isn’t necessarily the case today”

Most of us on here who have or have had electric cars have had access to home charging and TOU tariffs and for us there is no question EVs are cheaper to fuel (see my post above on comparative costs for me). This isn’t the case for many people buying new EVs today - even if you have a home charger you can’t get on Octopus Go as a new customer and as EVs penetration increases more and more people will be reliant in public charging. Free charging does still exist in some places but it is nowhere near as widespread or accessible as it used to be. Judging by the reaction of some on social media to Tesco now for charging 28p/kWh (that’s less than the capped domestic tariff) it was obviously a facility that many relied upon.

I know these kind of videos annoy some people (to the extent that some question the reporter’s motives) but serious motoring journalists making them today aren’t anti EV (in fact for many years motoring magazines such as Auto Express have been promoting  EVs) they are just pointing out that the economics of fuelling them have changed.

JKenH

Electric Vehicle Charging Research

Survey with electric vehicle drivers

Apologies if this April 2022 survey for the Department of Transport has been linked before but it makes interesting reading. What particularly struck me was that of the 848 EV drivers surveyed 76% also had access to an ICE in their household. 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1078871/dft-ev-driver-survey-summary-report.pdf

michaels

JKenH said:

Electric vs petrol car - which is really cheaper?? Whatcar?

https://youtu.be/SzZYRFZUbn0

Spoiler - it’s horses for courses. Charge at home and electric is cheaper. Charge on the road and it is more expensive (Ionity vs MSA petrol prices).

Well of course we know this but the apposite comment at the end of the video is that “in the early days of electric cars it was taken as a given that they were cheaper to run; that isn’t necessarily the case today”

Most of us on here who have or have had electric cars have had access to home charging and TOU tariffs and for us there is no question EVs are cheaper to fuel (see my post above on comparative costs for me). This isn’t the case for many people buying new EVs today - even if you have a home charger you can’t get on Octopus Go as a new customer and as EVs penetration increases more and more people will be reliant in public charging. Free charging does still exist in some places but it is nowhere near as widespread or accessible as it used to be. Judging by the reaction of some on social media to Tesco now for charging 28p/kWh (that’s less than the capped domestic tariff) it was obviously a facility that many relied upon.

I know these kind of videos annoy some people (to the extent that some question the reporter’s motives) but serious motoring journalists making them today aren’t anti EV (in fact for many years motoring magazines such as Auto Express have been promoting  EVs) they are just pointing out that the economics of fuelling them have changed.

I understood you can still get onto Octopus Go if you switch to their standard tariff and have an EV.  Do you have evidence that it is not available?

JKenH

michaels said:

JKenH said:

Electric vs petrol car - which is really cheaper?? Whatcar?

https://youtu.be/SzZYRFZUbn0

Spoiler - it’s horses for courses. Charge at home and electric is cheaper. Charge on the road and it is more expensive (Ionity vs MSA petrol prices).

Well of course we know this but the apposite comment at the end of the video is that “in the early days of electric cars it was taken as a given that they were cheaper to run; that isn’t necessarily the case today”

Most of us on here who have or have had electric cars have had access to home charging and TOU tariffs and for us there is no question EVs are cheaper to fuel (see my post above on comparative costs for me). This isn’t the case for many people buying new EVs today - even if you have a home charger you can’t get on Octopus Go as a new customer and as EVs penetration increases more and more people will be reliant in public charging. Free charging does still exist in some places but it is nowhere near as widespread or accessible as it used to be. Judging by the reaction of some on social media to Tesco now for charging 28p/kWh (that’s less than the capped domestic tariff) it was obviously a facility that many relied upon.

I know these kind of videos annoy some people (to the extent that some question the reporter’s motives) but serious motoring journalists making them today aren’t anti EV (in fact for many years motoring magazines such as Auto Express have been promoting  EVs) they are just pointing out that the economics of fuelling them have changed.

I understood you can still get onto Octopus Go if you switch to their standard tariff and have an EV.  Do you have evidence that it is not available?

Just something I recall seeing on Facebook. Maybe it was a temporary thing. Looking at the Octopus website it does seem to be available.

Edit: This got me thinking a bit more. The new Go rates for my area are 12p/40.23p plus 47.99 SC. I am currently paying 5.5p/13p. Whether it is worthwhile having Go compared to the standard variable tariff depends on how many miles one does and what domestic usage is. 

If, say, my usage was around 40% cheap rate and 60% standard. At say 2000 units cheap rate and 3000 units peak rate my bill would be £240 plus £1206.9 total £1446.9/5000 = 28.9p average. I currently heat my hot water by electric but at 12p it may be cheaper to switch to the oil boiler for one of our two hot water cylinders saving, say, 500 units which would bring my cheap rate usage down and overall average cost to around 31p/kWh. I can’t get an exact figure for the octopus SVT but imagine it would be about 33p so the overall saving from Go would be quite small. 

With 1500 units off peak and total usage of 4500 on the new Go rates my bill would be £180 plus £1206.9 = £1386.9 compared to £1485 (4500 units at 33p) on the SVT. 

This would make my effective off peak rate for choosing Go as follows

£1386.90 less £990 (3000 units at 33p) = £396.90 divided by 1500 units = 26.5p

What I am saying I can look at the Go tariff at the actual rate of 12p/40.23p or alternatively as 26.5p/33p.

I realise that for those with batteries the effective Go cheap rate will be much lower but for someone cooks by electric and who heats their water by gas and has no significant cheap rate usage  other than their EV, using Go might actually work out as much as the SVT or in some scenarios more expensive.

EricMears

michaels said:

I understood you can still get onto Octopus Go if you switch to their standard tariff and have an EV.  Do you have evidence that it is not available?

AIUI,   'basic Go' is still available but the 'GoFaster' variants have been suspended  FTTB

Petriix

I have solar but no battery. So far this year I'm averaging around 75% off-peak. The break-even point at current Go prices vs the cap is ~ 20% off-peak. So, even at 4,000kWh peak use and 1,000kWh off-peak you're ok.

But here's the thing: you can shift your domestic usage into the off-peak period too. Even without solar, I'd be at 62% off-peak so averaging ~ 22.6p per kWh at current Go prices. 

JKenH

Not really EV news but in the interests of fairness I should report that on my first long trip in my petrol Golf I had an issue with a petrol pump. After a 165 mile run averaging 51 mpg on the dashboard display I decided to fill up to check the mpg accurately. I was expecting the car to take about 15 litres so glancing at the litres indicator on the pump I was surprised to see it go past 18 litres. I looked round and petrol was spewing out the filler opening and running down the side of the car and rear wheel with a sizeable puddle under the car. I went into pay and pointed out the automatic cut off on the pump wasn’t working to be met with the comment “not again”.  

I suppose I should put it down to “fuelling losses”.